High stakes | 5 years ago | August 31, 2001 | Ron Fletcher described the scene before a library book sale.
“Those of you who’ve waited hours for tickets on a damp Saturday morning know well that thrill of finally stepping forward at 10 am to claim your prize. The local-library book sale provides no such pleasure. Instead, it traps one in a drama of a different order.

“Before the doors open, a handful of us — those who learned sales ago to show up early — size up the competition. With sidelong glances, we try to identify potential rivals. Perfect posture? Nonfiction with, perhaps, a yen for military history. Toting a canvas bag from the local farmers’ market and sipping tea? Gardens and cookbooks. A couple with bags full of bags, talking library layout and genre strategy? Dealers, a type more odious than the dilettante, that ill-shaven young man reading Rilke elegies, swilling Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, and checking his watch too often. If we sense no overlap in taste with our own, we are sweetness and light; detecting a doppelgänger, though, turns neighbor into nemesis.”

Still Crazy | 10 years ago | August 30, 1996 | Brett Milano attended a Neil Young and Crazy Horse show.
“In one of the more delicious ironies of the year, Neil Young and Crazy Horse opened last week’s two-night stand at Great Woods with the oft-quoted rock anthem ‘Hey Hey, My My (Out of the Blue).’ The song peaked, as usual, with Young dropping names in the last verse — ‘The King is gone, but he’s not forgotten/This is the story of Johnny Rotten’ — and that line was answered as usual by bassist Billy Talbot and rhythm guitarist Frank Sampedro shouting into the mike, ‘Johnny Rotten! Johnny Rotten!’ — grinning like two kids who’ve just learned a new cuss word.

“You had to remember how daring it sounded when Young wrote that line in 1978. He was the rock statesman invoking the name of an upstart punk who challenged everything that he stood for. But in 1996, he was performing that song less than two weeks after Johnny Rotten had headlined the very same stage — the two dueling icons are now part of the same touring circuit. And if you compare the spirited oldies show that Rotten played with the Sex Pistols to the churning, cathartic set that Young delivered with Crazy Horse, you have to wonder who’s standing prouder as the godfather of punk rock. But you don’t have to wonder for very long.”

Behind the music | 15 years ago | August 30, 1991 | Peter Keough liked Alan Parker's rock flick The Commitments more than his previous films.
“A bunch of urban working-class kids struggle to escape their fates by pooling their talents and forming a band. After a rocky start, they enjoy some success, and with it comes the requisite dissension, ambition, jealousy, and developing egos. Based on the novel by Irish writer Roddy Doyle, Alan Parker’s The Commitments tells a familiar story, one that Parker tried out more than a decade ago with his second film, Fame (1980). That film exploited the clichés and melodrama inherent in the premise. This time, Parker gets it right.

Melancholy holiday Given their predilection for moody, textural, electro-organic soundscapes and songs that resonate with melancholy disillusionment, Mobius Band don’t seem the type to buy into a Hallmark holiday.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse Neil Young was starting his transition from pop melodist to free-ranging noisemaker when he played these songs at New York City’s most famous rock hall on a bill with the Steve Miller Band and Miles Davis.

Rallying cries An increasingly unpopular war, a body count that grows daily even as our commander-in-chief touts our military triumphs, and an increasing sense of uneasiness as it becomes all too apparent that our leaders have been less than candid.

St. Anger Plus new albums by Jewel, the BellRays, and Rebel Meets Rebel.

Neil Young: Heart of Gold Filmed over two nights at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, this Neil Young concert documentary is a must-see for fans and will delight those with a limited interest in Young.